The Fire Inside
by Morgan Steelgrave
Summary: A vignette showing the darker, grittier side of life from Duo's point of view.


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"Fire Inside" - A Gundam Wing Songfic by Morgan Steelgrave   
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Okay, *this* isn't a twisted little piece of adolescent angst, I   
*swear*. But hey, better take it out on Duo rather than on my roomie,   
ne? Poor Duo, the stuff I put him through...   
  
Warnings...2+R/R+2(kinda), 1x2. Yaoi hints, lime. Kinda dark.   
But then what would a serious Duo fic be without some angst?   
  
--blah-- Song lyrics   
/blah/ Thoughts   
  
Disclaimer: They're not mine. Extensive therapy and some kickass   
drugs have helped me come to terms with that...GW is property of its   
respective owners, and "Fire Inside" is property of Bob Seger.   
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--There's a hard moon risin' on the streets tonight   
There's a reckless feeling in your heart as you head out tonight   
Through the concrete canyons to the midtown lights   
Where the latest neon promises are burning bright--   
  
He stalked along in the writhing vein of asphalt and neon, feeling   
the pulse of the metropolis tug at his body and quicken his pace to some   
unknown fate. He felt the city tug at his heart, too. There was   
something there, thrashing within the bonds of his veins and muscles and   
bones, struggling to be free of the cage his own body made for it. It   
fluttered against his chest, nervous and wild like an anxious bird.   
  
--Past the open windows on the darker streets   
Where unseen angry voices shout and children cry   
Past the phony posers with their worn-out lines   
The tired new money dressed to the nines   
The low life dealers with their bad designs   
And the dilettantes with their open minds--   
  
His breath tore from his mouth in ragged clouds of vapor that   
clambered to join the breath of the thousands in a dense fog that   
hovered just over their heads. He clutched a cigarette in one hand,   
but he had not bothered to smoke it. It burned slowly to its death,   
until the ember in its last grasp for life branded his chilled fingers   
and he dropped it, forgotten in the brilliant rainbows of the   
oil-slicked gutter.   
  
--You're out on the town, safe in the crowd   
Ready to go for the ride   
Searching the eyes, looking for clues   
There's no way you can hide   
The fire inside--   
  
He was walking mostly against the endless stream of people, bumping   
shoulders and elbows as he fought dumbly to keep his position. He   
glanced briefly at each of them as they either went around him or tried   
to go through him. Punks, who may or may not have been real punks, glared   
at him, daring him to glare back. Men and women pale beneath their make-up   
and various strangely erotic accoutrements, winking at him or simply trying   
to meet his wandering gaze with a needful one of their own. People with   
dark crescents beneath their eyes, trying desperately just to blend in and   
survive one more day. And people like himself, who looked just like any   
other person, but with something secret, untamed and reckless crooning   
inside that no one else could see or hear.   
  
--Well you've been to the clubs and the discotheques   
Where they deal one another from the bottom of the deck of promises   
Where the cautious loners and emotional wrecks   
Do an acting stretch as a way to hide the obvious   
And the lights go down an they dance real close   
And for one brief instant they pretend they're safe and warm-   
  
A chill breeze somehow cut through the midnight heat of the city   
streets, and he tugged the pliant leather of his jacket closer to his   
too-thin body as he ducked into the stone archway, left over from a   
different period of false security. He followed the shallow cement   
steps, damp with dripping rainwater, down into the club where the air   
was thick with smoke and the burdened beats of the music from the   
generic punk band and spotted by various multicolored lights and the   
occasional feeble spark from a lighter.   
  
He avoided the bar. He didn't want a drink to cloud his comfortable   
numbness. Leaning against the circular hardwood rail, worn to a slick   
shine by the anxious hands of the thousands before him who stood there,   
he watched the masses with trepidation, liking the ambiguous company of   
the dancers, but afraid that comfort might gel into something else.   
Vaguely aware of the nervousness moving his hands, he reached inside his   
coat and pulled out a cigarette and a lighter.   
  
When the girl slid into view immediately in front of him, lighting   
her cigarette from his lighter before the flame could even touch his own,   
his eyes took a moment to draw their focus from the flame to her face.   
She smiled at him, hesitantly bold, and took a drag off her cigarette.   
Her eyes were the same blue as her dress, and the fading eyeliner blended   
seamlessly to the point where he could not tell where the makeup ended and   
the fatigue began. She held up her shot glass, and without returning the   
smile, he took it after a moment and drained it, throwing it back without   
a grimace at his lack of willpower. She put it down on the rail, placing   
a hand on his shoulder and leading him out onto the dance floor.   
  
--Then the beat gets louder and the mood is gone   
The darkness scatters and the lights flash on   
They hold one another just a little too long   
And they move apart and then move on--   
  
They danced one dance. She wrapped her arms around his neck, clutching   
at him to keep from drowning in the smoke and neon. The music bound them,   
drawing them closer, and he brushed his lips against her ear, wanting to   
whisper something of what he felt or didn't feel. No words came out. Instead   
she shivered slightly, pulling him closer so he could smell the designer   
perfume and nicotine that permeated her long blonde hair.   
  
--On to the street, on to the next   
Safe in the knowledge that they tried   
Faking the smile, hiding the pain   
Never satisfied   
The fire inside   
Fire inside--   
  
But then the song ended, and they slowly moved apart as the beat   
picked up into an achingly Caribbean dance mix. She pulled back to face   
him, looked at him as if she was reading the marks of his soul. With an   
uncertain flirtatious smile, she turned and disappeared in the milling   
crowd. He stood there for a minute, then left the dance floor. Once or   
twice he thought he saw a flash of gold or blue in the masses, but when   
he stopped to look, his heart jumping and the people impeding his line   
of vision scattering, there was nothing there.   
  
--Now the hour is late and he thinks you're asleep   
You listen to him dress and you listen to him leave like you knew he would   
You hear his car pull away in the street   
Then you move to the door and you lock it when he's gone for good--   
  
He waited until he heard the car door open and shut before he   
opened his eyes against the darkness. He lay on his back, the ironically   
blistering white sheets wrapped around his legs, watching the bars of   
light dance through the blinds and across the room as the car backed out   
and pulled away. The silence held his eyelids open. He lolled his head   
to the side, looking past the glass of watered-down bourbon and the   
still-smoldering butts of too many cigarettes in the bedside ashtray. He   
got up, wrapping the sheet loosely around his torso and grabbing the now   
warm and diluted bourbon.   
  
--Then you walk to the window and stare at the moon   
Riding high and lonesome through a starlit sky   
And it comes to you how it all slips away   
Youth and beauty are gone one day   
No matter what you dream or feel or say   
It ends in dust and disarray--   
  
He leaned against the window, the glass cool against his naked   
flesh. He swallowed some of the bourbon and pressed his forehead to   
the pane, letting his vision go out of focus until his fuzzy, pale   
reflection was superimposed over that of the hard yellow moon.   
  
The sheets smelled like someone else. Not like himself, but   
not like the man he had just slept with, either. The smell was that   
of old liquor and acrid sex, of perfume and money he didn't have, and   
of a musty emptiness that had come to occupy his thin shell. It wasn't   
always like that. It didn't start out that way. But now he held the   
satin up to his nose and smelled what it had become. With a resigned   
grimace, he threw the sheet aside, standing naked in the darkness.   
  
--Like wind on the plains, sand through the glass   
Waves rolling in with the tide   
Dreams die hard and we watch them erode   
But we cannot be denied   
The fire inside--   
  
He reached over and turned on the radio, strolling into the   
bathroom to take a shower that would be unable to get him as clean   
as he wished it could. A slow song came on, melancholy in its heavy   
guitar chords, but ever-so-slightly hopeful. He paused in the bathroom   
doorway with his hand on the light switch, silhouetted against the golden   
vanity lights, and smiled faintly as the thought of a young blonde girl   
in a blue dress, the same blue as her intrepid eyes, danced across   
his mind.   
  
- FIN - 


End file.
